


Alone Together

by Bigmurderenergy



Series: The (After) Life of the Party [2]
Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Drug Use, I blame Pennywise, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Richie tries to work through some stuff, Self-Esteem Issues, but he's pretty slow about it, eddie is a babe though, he's not ok either way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 02:55:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20631923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bigmurderenergy/pseuds/Bigmurderenergy
Summary: Richie Tozier is an alcoholic.But, to be fair to him, a psychopathic clown entity kinda messed with his childhood memories. So this is him dealing with that stuff in the best way he can.





	Alone Together

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a series in which I'm basing my Richie characterisation on the film version. Also, yes I'm going to continue listening to Fall Out Boy and you can't stop me.

Here’s a thing about growing up that they don’t tell you while you’re doing it. You don’t know what you’re going to carry with you until it starts weighing you down. Even if you can’t fully remember why, you pick up habits. That’s probably a bad way of explaining it, but it’s all Richie has at this point.

Like the alcohol. It’s a very bad habit. But Richie couldn’t tell you where it started entirely.

Psychologists have deemed that your alcohol habits can be one of two things. Hereditary or social structures on development. So, it’s either in your blood already, or your family and friends influenced the methods in which you drink. Or both. Probably both.

Richie Tozier is an alcoholic.

He’s aware of that. No point in pretending otherwise. Plus, if it’s not alcohol it’s something else. It could be the Xanax. It could be the weed. It could be a sniff of ketamine. Anything to help him get through the day.

Cigarettes are a constant companion too. So, you could chalk it up to an addictive personality. Or the nicotine. Although the cigarettes don’t entirely help so much as it’s something to do with your hands. And lungs. It’s also a social experience mostly. Although Richie tends to smoke the most when he’s on his own. He tends to drink even more when left to his own devices.

This all sounds very unhealthy. Probably because it is.

As Richie drags another stranger in to the hotel room with him, he’s not really thinking any of this is unhealthy at all. Fumbling with the clasp of her bra, lips pressed against the soft skin of her neck. She’s giggling, he’s just happy to be breathing. He can taste the stale perfume on her skin. He can feel her pulse against his lips. It’s enough.

He opens his eyes to glaring sunlight and a mop of blonde hair against his chest. Her fingers curled up against his side. Her breath soft against his naked skin, her body warm. He can’t quite remember her name. It didn’t really matter at this point.

A side effect of fame is that Richie finds himself in this situation from time to time. He could hardly say he hated the attention. It’s why he does the job he does in the end. It’s an illusion. But it’s a really convincing one. Convincing enough he finds himself falling into it with ease more often than he cares to count.

If we develop our behavioural quirks in our youth, then would it help if he could remember a shred of it?

He has dreams from time to time. Not good dreams. Empty rooms. Dark corners. Screams of fear. He imagined they came from a life he lived at one point, but it was so far away it hardly mattered anymore. He’d wake up and grasp at the bedside table blindly, pulling whatever bottle was there and started drinking until the sweat from his brow cooled.

All this made sense on some level. Richie couldn’t really explain to you what that reasoning was, but his therapist kept assuming childhood trauma was something to do with it. The fact he couldn’t recall enough to put it to words made her even more sure of that. He’d worked on it for years. Same therapist, same dreams, same bourbon as he worked through those feelings. Always the same bourbon. At this point it tasted sour on his tongue.

His publicist told him he was getting worse. Richie could hardly disagree as he sucked another cigarette down to the filter.

“Why do you even care?” Richie asked petulantly.

“Because you pay me.” The publicist said.

That’s fair.

Errant memories of sleeping on hardened floors, straining to hear anything that sounds alive. He remembers Queens. He remembers the soft moans. The rustling of clothes. He remembers darkened rooms crying for someone to find him. Help him. Stop the crushing loneliness.

There is a thing about being famous, mildly famous, that really grinds against Richie. It’s that you’re never alone. Not really. Even when having sex with a beautiful blonde in your all-expense paid hotel room in the middle of the capital of somewhere… There’s someone waiting outside. There’s someone waiting for you as you come off stage. There’s always someone. Bodyguards, producers, publicists, reporters. There’s always someone out there, just waiting for you.

Richie is lying in an empty bed in the middle of Derry. There is no one outside his door.

He’s a little drunk. He did order shots at the Chinese restaurant. To be fair, it seemed to be in the spirit of the joviality. Remembering a lot of things Richie swore were lost forever. A lot of things he’d also rather forget. Like a psychopathic clown wizard that enjoyed preying on your own personal fears. Also, the baby crab was pretty creepy.

As he walked into the town house, he headed straight for the bar only to find Beverly already leaving with a bottle of amber liquid. He assumed it was the amaretto. He hoped she’d left him the strong stuff. Come on Beverley. Do Richie a favour here.

He pulled an antiquated bottle of vodka. Not his favourite. It’ll do.

Now lying on the bed in the middle of, apparently, his hometown. Staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. Hearing the familiar rattle of trees outside the window. He even remembered the smell of this fucking town. He can’t sleep.

There’s something missing. That familiar breath of a stranger. The shuffling of said stranger picking up their clothes in a flurry of shame and accomplishment. Richie should never have gotten famous. It left him lonelier than he ever felt possible.

Deep breaths, the therapist had taught him. Life isn’t about the past, it’s not about the future. It’s about the now. Its about what you do. That’s what Richie tells himself as he wanders to Eddie’s door. Bottle of vodka in hand.

“Hey.” He smiled weakly to the sleep deprived Eddie standing in front of him. “So, I can’t sleep. Can I bunk with you?” Not his best line.

Eddie stepped aside.

“I’ll sleep on the floor, I don’t mind.” Richie offered.

Eddie glanced at him. Then looked at his king bed. “You really don’t have to.”

“No, its fine. Seriously. It’s a thing, it’s fine. It’s-”

“Get in the fucking bed. Jesus, Richie.”

And that’s how Richie found himself sleeping with Eddie toes resting against his sternum.

Here’s the thing. Richie can’t stand empty rooms. Call it a side effect of his endless popularity. That’s being generous. But Richie didn’t have to sleep alone at this point in his life. Fame had eradicated that loneliness. He was surrounded by people who craved his attention to the point where a single night was enough.

Eddie didn’t need that. That wasn’t what this was. If it was, they’d be naked already. But they weren’t. There was a comfort beyond that. It was familiar. Like it was something they’d done a hundred times before. Richie could remember the tempo of Eddie’s breaths in his sleep. He was so close he could count them all over again.

Being in Derry had really messed with his mind, clearly. A flood of memories and sensations that were impossible to interpret. Eddie was already asleep. Richie could only stare at his sock covered toes.

He dreamt of all the floors he’d slept on in Queens. All the weeks he’d spent hearing those beautiful brown-haired men sleep on their equally beautiful girlfriends. Feeling that ache.

Lying in that bed, nestled against the man he’d grown up with as a boy, in the town Richie could barely remember. It wasn’t a flood. It was a trickle.

He saw the old quarry where they would swim together, lie in the summer, letting their skin dry under the sun. Talking shit about each other’s mothers. Reading nonsense from smutty books they’d found in the school library out loud for everyone to hear. Beverly sitting amongst them, laughing the loudest. Ben smiling with the most mirth. Bill so thrilled to have the camaraderie. Mike looking frankly amazed he had friends. Stan concerned about the amount of pollen in the air that might encourage his hay fever. Eddie complaining about tetanus in rocks or something equally nonsensical. Richie remembers spouting shit and smiling more than he thought possible.

He remembers dark rooms, shouts from adult voices. He remembers the smell of vodka staining the walls as another bottled smashed against the wallpaper. He remembers sitting on his own in his childhood home. He remembers finding release with his friends. They didn’t know, so did it really matter?

He remembers goading Eddie. Seeing his big brown eyes widen in fury. Richie remembered loving that sensation he got when he did that. Wanting to do it over and over.

He remembered tasting his first cigarette behind the gym walls with Beverly and Mike.

He remembered Bill trying to tell him Pride and Prejudice isn’t just about bodices and marriage, but a satire of those things. Sure, Bill.

He remembered Ben explaining the history of the arcade hall Richie spent so much of his time in.

He remembered Stan offering him an antihistamine when his eyes were watering too much on a summer’s day. They must have been stronger than was assumed as Richie can only remember his head lolling against a chicken grate fence moments later. Richie likes to attribute that to his first full drug experience. Thanks Stan.

He remembers hugging Eddie and telling him he’s not obliged to his mother’s whims. He remembers looking into those big brown eyes and telling him he’s not broken. That Eddie was probably the most together of all his friends. That he deserved better. He remembered kissing Eddie’s forehead tenderly. Wrapping his arms around him and inhaling his scent. Feeling lost in that moment.

He could recall that moment so vividly. He remembers putting everything into that moment. I love you. I care about you. Please don’t leave me.

Eddie’s foot tapped against Richie’s chest in his sleep. Richie reached out with his hand, gently holding the reverberating still. Eddie’s breath was warm against his feet. Richie’s heart ached.

He wished he could reach for the vodka, but it would break the moment.

We carry things from childhood. It might be bad habits. It might be that trauma the therapist keeps trying to remind him of. It might be these feelings that overwhelm Richie in that moment. His fingers drifted up and down Eddie’s socked foot.

He looked up towards Eddie’s sleeping face. Peaceful but tense. Like that was even possible. Richie couldn’t sleep at this point without the correct amount of alcohol. He wondered if anyone had ever seen Eddie that peaceful but conflicted. Probably not. Eddie wouldn’t give anyone the luxury.

Closing his eyes against Eddie’s sleeping frame. He dreamt about hammocks. About jokes. About tender hugs. About the moment that never happened. About how this could be so much easier if he could just remember what he lost.

It wasn’t lost though. It was here. Eddie was here. Warm and steady against him.

It was enough.


End file.
